Category — What the Fishwa?

TOI reports on a cola giant getting fined – as a condom was found in a sealed bottle it marketed.

The state consumer commission has ordered a prominent cola giant to pay Rs 20,000 as compensation and Rs 3,000 as cost of litigation to a  consumer, who found a condom inside a sealed bottle and fell sick after consuming the drink from another bottle he ordered.

The complainant, Sudesh Sharma, a resident of Ujhani village here, had purchased two cola bottles from a retail shop near Kashmere Gate back in 2003. Sharma was shocked to see a condom inside the sealed cola bottle. On consuming the second bottle, he found dirt and other contaminants inside it. He started suffering from severe dyspepsia and headache, followed by insomnia. His condition worsened over a period of time and he had to seek medical treatment.

Note the TOI report – it says a “a prominent cola giant”. The giant actually happens to be Pepsi – which for some reason the TOI hesitates to name. Naming Pepsi would result in reduced adspends, right?

Now let’s look at the Sharma story. He buys two bottles of cola (of a prominent giant) – discovers a condom in one of them. So shocked he is by his discovery- that he goes on to gulp the other bottle,  which incidentally is contaminated as well.

So believable, eh?

Here are news reports from the incident where an AI aircraft almost crashed into a presidential chopper.

The Indian Express Report

IC 866 aborted take-off at the eleventh hour after the controller spotted the presidential chopper — either an Mi-8 or an Mi-17 — on the active runway and alerted the pilot. ATC officials said the helicopter landed at the junction of runway 0927 and taxiway Charlie at 9.17 am, three minutes before its estimated time of arrival. A major disaster could have taken place had the tower not spotted the helicopter in the passenger aircraft’s take-off path.

The HT Report

“The plane was just about to take off when the pilot suddenly applied the emergency brakes… I saw a helicopter pass by as the pilot announced that he had suddenly sighted the helicopter and even the ATC did not know about the helicopter,” said Anshul Dhar, a Dubai resident.

The Hindu Report

The pilot of the Air India flight to Delhi–IC 866– aborted take off when he saw the helicopter landing on the runway he was about to use apparently due to wrong directions from the Air Traffic Control, official sources said.

So, who first spotted the helicopter – the pilot or the controller? And why are these news reports – covering the same incident so different in facts?

This reminds of a quote from someone unknown: After you’ve heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident, it makes you wonder about history.

Mumbai’s doctors decide to take a day off every month.

As a mark of solidarity, doctors across the city have decided to observe ‘No Practice Day’ once in a month to highlight the lack of security  for the medical fraternity. The decision comes after a day-long strike by the resident doctors of KEM on Tuesday to protest against the assault on five of their colleagues by the relatives of a patient over an autopsy issue.

After all the malpractice, overcharging, mis-diagnosis and blotched surgeries they do – no wonder they still call their work as practice.

Hope one day they permanently end their practice on patients and get back to work.

A man in Australia has been fired because he had “un-Australian”  toilet habits.

A man has been fired from his job, because he uses water instead of toilet paper.  Amador Bernabe, 43, is a machine operator in Townsville on a working visa from the Philippines, the Townsville Bulletin reports.

“I went to go to the toilet and I took a bottle of water when my foreman saw me and he said, ‘you can’t bring the water in there’,” News.com.au quoted Bernabe, as saying.

Now, though there isn’t any direct Indian connection to the incident, I still think it is a massive insult to our beloved Indian culture.  The fired-employee has every right to use water. And a very angry me, thinks we Indians must retaliate.

I immediately shot off an email to the IPL Commissioner, Lalit Modi – asking him to sack Matthew Hayden from the IPL, as a  retaliatory action – citing needless paperwork as the reason.

Lalit Modi was kind enough to reply. He clarified that he raised the issue with Hayden personally, and Hayden said :” In India, I always do what the Indians do. With so much of hot curry around, it’s always safe using water. The damned paper could catch fire…”

The Times of India reports, with specific case-studies, on how frequent power-cuts have lead to an increased  frequency of sex in Nepal.

As the long cold winter nights stretch on without TV, internet or other forms of entertainment that kept Nepalis engaged, marital sex is on the rise. So are pregnancies.

Pawan Sharma, a doctor at Patan Hospital, says sexual activity has increased due to power cuts. “When there is power, people are working and have little time for sex. But when there is ample spare time, the frequency of sex increases.”

While the Nepalese have found an amazing way to convert unproductive hours into something really productive, I am sitting in the darkness of interior Maharashtra, draining away backup batteries – all for a thoroughly inconsequential blog.

Sorry, need to log-off for now…

The amazingly innovative Sri Rama Sene has decided to marry-off dating couples in Bangalore on Valentine’s day.

At a meeting on Wednesday, chaired by Sri Rama Sene leader Pramod Mutalik, Sene decided to arrange marriage between dating couples. For that, it has formed five teams. They will roam around Bangalore with a video camera and turmeric stub. If they find young couples dating, they will force them to wed on the spot. “The couples will be taken to a sub-registrar’s office to solemnise the marriage,” S Vasanth Kumar Bhavani, Sene’s Bangalore city president, told TOI.

So all you lovebirds who are having trouble getting married – due to opposition from parents, relatives, society, religious or caste differences – or if you just want to avoid wedding expenses, just make sure you are dating in Bangalore on V-day.

You get an all-expenses paid wedding, courtesy the Sene – and that too solemnised by the registrar. And when your angry parents confront you, just say – what to do, what to do, they forced us.

PS: This is unrelated to the above, but an insider tells me that Bebo and Saif have just cancelled their Valentine date in Bangalore.

With Slumdog, news about dogs are in vogue. An Australian newspaper now reports on how an Indian girl was married off to a dog.

Villagers in India have “married” off a young girl to a stray dog to ward off an evil spirit which they believed was threatening the family.

The locals at Munda Dhanda village  in Jharkhand state, performed the ceremony as they believe it will overcome any curse that might fall on the family.

Interestingly, the girl is free to get married later in life to a man without even seeking a divorce.

Now, I have read previous reports of  people being married off to trees and even dishwashers. But I thought getting married to a dog was bizarre, till I carried out a private little survey of my own.

“What’s new?”, retorted a lady. “Most women are married to dogs.”

Woof.

That must be the joke of the year. Or the year of the joke, I am not too certain.

Though the Bachchan family’s official pimp, Amar Singh had a role to play in getting Ms.Rai Bachchan the award, it is encouraging that the Government of India is now honouring people manufactured from PVC as well.  

I wonder what what would happen if I go on to award Padma with the Aishwaryashree…  that’s way too dangerous to even think about.

My favourite politician Amar Singh organised his 78th press conference of the month. This time to expose the wounds he had suffered at the hands of UP policemen in Gorakhpur. The UP policemen had earlier mocked Amar Singh and challenged him to show his injury marks before the media.

“I want you to see the wound on my forehead, which I received in Gorakhpur due to lathi charge by the police”, Singh told reporters.

He also claimed to have received injuries in other parts of his body during protests in Gorakhpur on Chief Minister Mayawati’s birthday which he said he was ready to show to the reporters but not in public.

In the end, it ended up as a pretty dull affair – with Amar Singh not going public with his body marks. It would have highly entertaining to watch Amar Singh in one of those John Abraham poses. No?

A bizarre survey conducted on behalf of Microsoft reveals that almost half of the Australians use their cellphones on the toilet.

One in two Aussies admitted on using the mobile phone while on the toilet, compared to 66 per cent of Chinese people.

[…]

The survey also showed that 24 per cent of the men found it acceptable to propose to their partner using their mobile phone compared to 11 per cent women.

Who else, but Microsoft can think of such crap surveys.

But I do like the Australian way of life. While half of the guys use the phone in the loo, and a quarter use the phone to propose to their partners – I wonder what percentage of Australians propose to their mates on the cellphone, while sitting  in the toilet.

Sadly, the survey doesn’t carry this figure. Neither does it mention what percentage got ‘yes’ as an answer.